"As you all know (or not) I'm going up to the mountains tomorrow. And as you also know, the mountains happen to be my place of relaxation and stress relief. Now, there's one thing that might possibly ruin that, and that one thing has a name. Its name is Jason.
For those of you unaware, that would be my brother. Jason and I had a fight about a month ago and since the fight I guess you can say that things have gotten better between us, but there's one thing that I've never pegged him as. And that is an outdoorsman. When we were younger he was the one who always complained about the trips we'd take to the mountains. He never really seemed to enjoy any time we spent in nature and loathed anything and everything we did with our parents (mainly because it's uncool to hang out with your folks...in his eyes, anyways). His biggest flaw when outdoors is his mouth (it's his biggest flaw all the time, actually), the kid doesn't shut up! He can take a perfectly serene moment and ruin it by saying something like "feces pizza" or singing "La Bamba" as "Langosta" (which is lobster in Spanish for those of you unfamiliar with the word) or simply complaining that his legs are tired or that it's hot or any minuscule thing after having only hiked a mile. At the camp site he'll undoubtedly ask me to play some trivial game with him while I'm sitting reading or enjoying the openness and freedom of only slightly tamed country.
Jason is an odd specimen. He recently asked me to join him on an excursion this winter break to a foreign land. He had found an offer from expedia.com promoting the Indiana Jones movie stating that you can follow in Indie's footsteps in several different continents with some gimmicky bull crap saying that you could ride elephants or go through the Amazon, blah, blah, blah. Again, I bring you to the previous paragraph stating that Jason has never enjoyed being one with nature. While I would love to venture to a foreign country this winter I neither have the funding nor the patience to deal with someone who has made me time and again want to rip out their jugular with sandpaper and a pair of pliers. I can only speculate as to his reasoning behind wanting to go on such a trip. My best bets are some machismo nonsense and/or some poor excuse for a spiritual quest. All I know is that afterwards he'd use his "experiences" in a foreign land to tell you (me) that you're (I'm) insignificant and worthless. And honestly, I don't need anyone but myself to tell me that.
But on the topic of trips out of the U.S. to a land over the sea or to the southern hemisphere I do plan on going. After graduation I plan on taking a "sabbatical" (as Scott's been calling it) to the UK and Spain. It'll be a two month adventure with no tour guides and no friends (maybe). I'm excited."
And now my blog is stuck in italics (now only part of it is, I kind of fixed it). Sigh. Anyways, was I correct in my assumptions? Undoubtedly, yes. The experience went as follows: We ate dinner at Carino's prior to fleeing civilization and it was there that he explained his plans for "adventure" and it had something to do with wanting to go on a planned excursion where he'd get to "do things" other than "walking." Apparently he can't plan a trip in the U.S. (not that I'm knocking that, I just find his reasoning to be ridiculous and nonsensical) and feels that a travel agency setting up excursions (tourist crap) would give him a worthwhile experience. I understand that we're dissimilar in our ways of experiencing new lands and environments (I'd much rather figure it out as I go along. Planning is so dull and uninteresting to me) and I can respect his need to have a plan, so good for him, it's what comes next that makes me question his desire to travel to a foreign land.
After the dinner and the drive up we of course had to pitch tents and such as it was the middle of the night and all were exhausted. See, I have the good fortune of being able to assemble a tent pretty quickly as they're essentially a disassemble-able rod with small metallic stakes to drive into the ground. It's as straightforward as you can make it. I honestly don't think he would have been able to pitch the tent properly or in a timely manner had I not been there. I awoke the next morning to something to the likening of "what's up poop-face." Now, from an outsider's perspective it's pretty hilarious that a 22-year old man would use such childish sayings, but when you hear it over...and over...and over...for several years (minutes) it kind of loses it's umph (we're not at the questioning of his desires for foreign excursions yet).
What really irked me about the entire situation came shortly thereafter while we were actually on our hike (which ended up being just short of seven miles). Again my suspicions were revealed to be true when throughout the entire hike I was marauded by questions of "which Batman movie is the best" and "could Indiana Jones continue as a series without Harrison Ford." Neither of my answers to these questions were suitable enough for "World War Suarez" and of course lead to more chattering on unimportant things. My problem here is not that he asked me these questions (as I don't mind silly questions of the sort, even though I thought my answers would be obvious (the original '60s version and "no" are the answers to those in case you're wondering)) nor that he didn't accept my answers and had to be correct in his way of thinking (as I'm used to it), no, it was the fact that he was doing this while we were hiking! The time where you're supposed to be soaking in the beauty of nature and all of its sounds (or lack thereof) and not talking! I used my my camera to get out of some of these "conversations" simply motioning that I was taking photos and gesturing "go on ahead, I'll catch up." So, strike one, "World War."
Second absurdity was directly after finishing the hike that day. We reached the car and immediately the other brother asks for "Wet Ones" (those moist towelette things) from ma and proceeds to ever so gently wipe away all of the dirt and dust that had accumulated on his recently shaved legs (entire body) and then complain that the hike was "too long." Upon return to base camp he hurriedly washed himself off and took a nap after telling me "I wanna go home already and take a shower." Mind you, this statement was not made even 18 hours into our trip. This disturbs me. To quote Nicholas Cage in The Rock "How in the name of Zeus's butt-hole did you get out of the cell!" In other words, how is it that this "man"desires to tackle a trip through the Amazon, trek through Nepal or Egypt and can't handle one day in the Sierras? Complaints of cold temperatures (and pretty much anything that involves the absence of electrical technology) and the lack of knowledge of anything outdoors pins him as someone who would find a trip of the "adventuring" variety unfavorable and unbearable.
And of course, there were the requisite "let's play catch" moments and the incalculable amount of "crap-face, poop-face, feces pizza, why are you so gay, what's your gay pride pin say, NO!, etc." being flung at me the way Billy Joel flings himself on raw beef in a trough.
Anyways, all complaints about brothers aside, the trip was fine. It wasn't as good as the last time (clearly) but part of that dealt with a new experience of mine. I brought my ipod this time around and wanted to see what star-gazing was like with different types of music and also hiking with accompanying music. I much preferred the original way. A side note on camping and star-gazing, it always reminds me of Billy Bragg's "A New England" (which I've posted and will post again) and the line "I saw two shooting stars last night, I wished on them, but they were only satellites and it's wrong to wish on space hardware, I wish, I wish, I wish you cared" as I'm always looking for shooting stars and wishing on them when I'm in the wilderness. When we got back from the trip I had to venture on back down to San Diego in order to clean the Lemon Grove house prior to the expiration of our lease agreement. I was there for about eight hours yesterday getting the place all squared away and a couple more hours today. I'll be back home until school starts on the third. In the meantime there will be two Birdmonster concerts in a row on the 1st and 2nd of September and I may even have the opportunity to get stinko with the band (Dave at least). I'm excited. Even if you can't come to Tuesday's show, I'm excited. I honestly don't think that anything can ruin a Birdmonster show. Not even rabid wolverines set loose in the audience.
Anyways, I think I've written quite enough for now. I'm thinking of just giving you all the missed Poetry Sunday tomorrow (Wednesday) and have the usual 3 poems on Sunday. Let me know what you think in the comments (again, noted as the "drunken ramblings" link below the post) thread.
No comments:
Post a Comment